Results of the AKM Video Meteor Network - April 2001 ==================================================== Looking back at the weather in April, there is not much positive to report on. In Germany it was the third month in a row with unusually poor weather. At many places we had frequent snow falls until mid-April! It was only thanks to a few clear nights at the end of April that the negative records of February and March were not beaten. What's interesting is that the conditions differed quite siginificantly from site to site. Whereas I, for example, had hardly any completely clear night and accumulated only 25 hours of effective observing time in 8 nights, there was Joerg who managed to observe as much as 65 hours in 12 nights only 200 km to the north-west. By the way, the moment when we will rename our network is approaching. In this months we could welcome two new observers in our midst. Orlando Benitez Sanchez has been observing from the Canary islands since fall last year, and Steven Evans from Great Britain, who took part in a number of successful Leonid campaigns, has also joined our effort. Ilkka Yrjola, on the other hand, will have to take a break in the next few months as the night sky is not getting dark anymore at his northern observing site in Finland. It seems we will get used to new records presented to us by Rob McNaught in Australia. Even though he experienced a hard disc crash last month, which resulted in a loss of two observing nights, he managed to record more than 3000 meteors in April. Everyone of us could become envy about these figures. :-) In the end the summary of April was quite encouraging thanks to the large number of cameras. Never before we had 10 stations in regular operation. In all nights but one there were at least one camera system active, and the 455 hours of effective observing time are a great result. Even if we take out the observations from Rob for a moment, we captured more meteors than last April, which saw much better weather. 1. Observers ============ Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR Benitez S. Maspalomas GRACAVIS (1.4/50) 20 dg 8 mag 10 55.0 h 135 EVAST Evans Little Thurlow EMILY (1.8/28) 36 dg 5 mag 1 3.0 h 1 KOSDE Koschny Noordwijkerhout ICC4 (0.85/25) 25 dg 6 mag 7 40.1 h 62 KNOAN Knoefel Duesseldorf VIDEOMET (0.75/50) 20 dg 7 mag 2 10.2 h 11 MCNRO McNaught Coonabarabran SSO1 (1.2/85) 13 dg 9 mag 20 179.8 h 3217 MOLSI Molau Aachen AVIS (2.0/35) 40 dg 5 mag 8 25.3 h 55 NITMI Nitschke Dresden VK1 (0.75/50) 20 dg 8 mag 5 24.3 h 48 RENJU Rendtel Marquardt CARMEN (1.8/28) 28 dg 5 mag 7 36.8 h 35 STRJO Strunk Leopoldshoehe FAMOS (2.0/28) 45 dg 5 mag 12 65.0 h 167 YRJIL Yrjola Kuusankosi NONAME (2.0/35) 35 dg 6 mag 3 16.2 h 13 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall 29 455.7 h 3744 2. Observing Times (h) ====================== Apr 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - 2.4 7.1 - - - - 1.7 - 6.5 EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - 6.4 2.9 - - KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - 3.7 6.5 - - - MCNRO 9.5 9.6 - 9.7 9.7 10.1 - - 8.9 - 10.1 9.4 9.6 10.1 10.1 MOLSI 6.8 5.4 - 0.3 - - - - - - 1.6 - - - - NITMI 5.0 5.0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - RENJU 7.8 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STRJO 8.6 6.8 - - - - 8.2 - - - 2.4 7.6 5.2 - - YRJIL - 7.0 - - - - - - - 4.3 - - - - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 37.7 33.8 - 10.0 9.7 10.1 10.6 7.1 8.9 4.3 17.8 29.9 19.4 10.1 16.6 Apr 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - 8.0 - - 5.0 5.8 6.8 - 6.9 - - - 4.8 - - EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - 3.0 - - KOSDE - - - - 6.6 8.0 7.6 2.3 6.3 - - - - - - KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MCNRO 9.0 9.9 9.9 9.0 2.6 - 1.6 - - - 10.1 10.6 10.3 - - MOLSI - - - - - - - - - 1.0 1.0 - 6.1 - 3.1 NITMI - - - 4.2 - - - 5.1 5.0 - - - - - - RENJU - - - 6.9 - - - - 4.2 - 5.7 - 4.2 2.6 5.4 STRJO - - 3.2 - 3.2 4.0 5.8 5.1 - - 4.9 - - - - YRJIL - - - - - - - - 4.9 - - - - - - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 9.0 17.9 13.1 20.1 17.4 17.8 21.8 12.5 27.3 1.0 21.7 10.6 28.4 2.6 8.5 3. Results (Meteors) ==================== Apr 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - 1 4 - - - - 5 - 11 EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - 6 5 - - KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - 4 7 - - - MCNRO 126 123 - 162 140 88 - - 16 - 115 154 188 226 194 MOLSI 18 3 - 1 - - - - - - 4 - - - - NITMI 11 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - RENJU 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STRJO 10 10 - - - - 8 - - - 4 24 20 - - YRJIL - 10 - - - - - - - 2 - - - - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 166 152 - 163 140 88 9 4 16 2 127 191 218 226 205 Apr 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - 15 - - 17 10 24 - 16 - - - 32 - - EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 - - KOSDE - - - - 14 19 7 2 9 - - - - - - KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MCNRO 231 262 257 284 4 - 21 - - - 242 217 167 - - MOLSI - - - - - - - - - 5 5 - 12 - 7 NITMI - - - 9 - - - 10 12 - - - - - - RENJU - - - 14 - - - - 2 - 7 - 4 2 5 STRJO - - 14 - 12 38 14 5 - - 8 - - - - YRJIL - - - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 231 277 271 307 47 67 66 17 40 5 262 217 216 2 12 Sirko Molau, 2001/05/10